Wind
by chromium clockwork
Summary: When Bella thought of Jacob, she thought of the wind. She had learned to love them both, slowly, subtly, and not quite able to remember when it had become effortless. Set in NM. Bella x Jacob. One x Shot.


**Wind: A Twilight Fanfiction**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Twilight or any of its characters.

**Author's Note: **Yeah, that's right, I went there: Bella and Jake. If you don't like, don't read, and subsequently, don't flame! R&R.

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When Bella thought of Jacob, she thought of the wind.

It was damp and cool with the rain that was ever-lurking in the town of Forks, with the faint taste of salt in the air—so different than that of dry Phoenix, with its beautiful, clear, sharp lines. Not that Forks wasn't lovely in its own right; it was just a different kind of beauty. It had taken effort, at first, to appreciate the greenery dampened with dewdrops and the dark shadows under the trees. Eventually, though, she had learned that there were mysteries that beckoned and enthralled those who opened their eyes wide enough to see them.

Bella had learned to love Jacob like she had learned to love the wind: slowly, subtly, and not quite able to remember when something had clicked, and it was effortless, like the flow of the air as it grabbed strands of her hair and tossed them around, rushing past her, carrying laughter and life and memories…and love. And now, she could recognize and appreciate the differences between the taste of a thunderstorm on the air and the softer flavor of a simple spring shower.

He was the cloudburst, with the tang of lightening on her tongue.

There was something so free about the way Jacob acted around her—something totally unlike _him_—but no, she would not think of that. Because it was all too often that she slept poorly, troubled by nightmares, so what point was there in ruining a simple dream? But Jacob moved like the wind and the rain, twirling her around and begging her to just let go to him. She didn't ever do it when she was awake—there was too much she was bound to hide.

But when Bella slept, she wasn't afraid to let go to the thunderstorm, and she wept and laughed and sang to the whistling melody of the breeze and the deep harmony of the rolling thunder. And, most amazingly of all, Bella danced—and fell. But Jacob would catch her or help her back up (she was always grateful, and yet somehow unsure when her dreams allowed him to do the first) and she would dance again. Because when she slept, she could grasp the value in letting loose, letting go—and she could savor the taste of the rain and the wind as it soaked her lips, her mouth, her skin—and she could laugh in the face of lightening, because it pleased her to do so.

Jacob was the precarious gravity that held Bella together.

God knows, she needed something to hold her together—and he was it, when he held her hand in the emergency room as the doctor put stitches in whatever part of her needed them today, as if there was some of him in the thread. Jacob was the ground, firm yet soft under her, and he was the force that held her there, together, so she didn't fly apart into a million pieces. It was such a silly delusion, she knew—had to have something to do with his scent, like male and soap and pliable, fresh earth. But knowing it was fiction didn't keep her from knowing it was real, in the metaphorical sense of the word.

There were bad times, of course; sometimes it was like walking along the fault lines of deep, gushing rivers—marking his surface, making Jacob, _Jacob_—and praying, _please don't let me fall in._ Because unlike their nonfiction counterparts, these openings would have consequences—other than death—because anger is a passionate emotion, and passion near Jacob was like gasoline near a fire (her own personal sun), and from passion to passion went hopeless anger to hopeless love. Try as she might to deny it, some deep-rooted instinct inside of her told her that yes, such chemical changes were possible, probable, likely (wanted, needed, so close to irresistible).

Because when Bella thought of Jacob, she thought of wind—of motion.

There was nothing to Jacob if not motion—the motion of her blood as he coaxed it to dance through her body, in the place of her absent heart.


End file.
